I. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to communications. More particularly, the present invention is directed to methods and systems for maintaining and selecting profile sets for various communications services.
II. Description of Related Art
Advances in the telecommunications industry have led to the availability of a large number of communications services. Such services are available, often by subscription, to users of current communications networks. For example, some of these services include voicemail, selective ringing, voice-activated calling, selective call forwarding, and text messaging, among numerous other services. Additionally, many of these services have service parameters that can be used to modify their functionality.
In this regard, for example, a voicemail service may have multiple greetings that may be stored by a user. A user may use one of these greetings as a “primary” greeting, which callers will hear when the user does not answer an incoming call within a specified number of rings. Alternatively, all calls may be directly forwarded to the voicemail service and an alternate greeting may be used. The user may also use one of the available greetings as a “not available” greeting, which callers may hear when the user is either on the phone or out of the office.
As another example, call forwarding may be used to direct calls placed to the user's phone number to another phone number at which the user, or someone who is taking calls for the user, will be. This may be done non-discriminately, with all calls being forwarded to the other number. Alternatively, calls may be forwarded on a selective basis, such as the subscriber accepting calls only from certain numbers (which may be based on caller identification information), while all other calls are forwarded.
The availability of such services (among others), with corresponding service parameters, allows subscribers to adapt the services they use (or subscribe to) to their particular needs. Most subscribers, however, have different service preferences at different times. In this respect, a subscriber may desire that multiple services be configured in one way during business hours, such as when the subscriber is in his/her business office or normal place of business. However, the subscriber may prefer that those same services are configured in another way during business hours when traveling away from the subscriber's home office. Additionally, the subscriber may want the services configured in still other ways during weekday evening hours, on weekends, or when the subscriber is on vacation. These situations are, of course, exemplary.
In current communications systems, such services may be distributed across a number of platforms that are included in a communications network. A carrier with which the subscriber has obtained a phone number and access to a communications network of the carrier may provide some services. Other services may be provided by third parties (not by the carrier), which are included on platforms coupled with the communications network that the subscriber has access to through the carrier. For example, a voicemail service may be provided to the subscriber by the carrier, while a news and information service may be provided to the subscriber by a third party via the carrier's communications network. These various communications services also have various manners in which subscribers configure the services based on their individual preferences. The configuration for each of the multiple services for a respective subscriber is maintained in a profile for the subscriber.
In this regard, modifying how such services operate (e.g., modifying the subscriber's profile), so as to be consistent with the subscriber's preferences may be a time consuming process. For example, to change the configuration of the subscriber's voicemail service in the subscriber's profile, the subscriber dials into the voicemail service and then traverses an interactive voice response unit's (IVRU's) menu to enable or disable the voicemail service, select the type of calls to be forwarded to the service, select which greeting to use from multiple greetings, among any number of other options. The subscriber's profile is then updated to reflect any changes in the configuration of the voicemail service made by the subscriber using the IVRU.
Then, if the subscriber, for example, wishes to modify the configuration of a call forwarding service, the subscriber must disconnect from the IVRU. After the subscriber is disconnected from the IVRU, he/she may then modify the call forwarding service using, for example, a feature-code selection system. In this regard, the subscriber dials a certain key sequence (e.g. *23) and then enters (in this example) a call forwarding number and any criteria on which calls are forwarded (e.g. all calls or selective). The subscriber's profile may then be updated to reflect any changes made to the call forwarding service.
Other services may be configured in different manners. For example, the subscriber may configure a news and information service by contacting a customer service representative by phone, by accessing another IVRU (physically and functionally distinct from the voicemail IVRU), or by using a World Wide Web based interface. Other services (such as voice calling, selective ringing, etc.) are modified in a similar, one by one, and stepwise manner. Such an approach to configuring communications services is both time consuming and inefficient for the subscriber. Thus, alternative approaches may be desirable.